


Set Yr <3 At Rest

by Queertrees



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Everyone Is Alive, F/F, Families of Choice, M/M, Mentions of homophobia, Season/Series 10, Sober Dean, Tattoos, give cas a motorcycle, sort of, theyre all nerds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-06
Updated: 2015-05-06
Packaged: 2018-03-29 08:01:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3888586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queertrees/pseuds/Queertrees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel had been so busy protecting Claire (or, he reminded himself, possessing her or stealing her father)- acting by his duty and trying to give her what he owed to her- that it didn’t even occur to him whether he loved her or not. He felt for her, so painfully and so much, but love came later.</p><p>Set after 10.20.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Set Yr <3 At Rest

Castiel had been so busy protecting Claire (or, he reminded himself, possessing her or stealing her father)- acting by his duty and trying to give her what he owed to her- that it didn’t even occur to him whether he loved her or not. He felt for her, so painfully and so much, but love came later.

 ***

Love came a little through the texts Jody sent.

_I swear some days this girl looks just like you._

_Little darling thinks she can scare me. Like I haven’t been raising a girl raised by vamps these last few years._

_Why is she so stubborn about every single thing? If I didn’t know she wasn’t actually your kid, I’d say she gets it right from you…_

And:

_Some kid at school kept hitting on her. He called her ‘Angel baby’ today so she gave him a bloody nose. I baked her a lasagna._

That one she sent to Dean. Castiel suspected Jody hadn't wanted to tell him how angry the label had made Claire. But it made Dean laugh and show it to Cas with something like pride.

 ***

Love came in tiny waves when they’d take a few days off after a hunt, if they were anywhere near Sioux Falls, and go visit Jody and Alex and Claire. The first time they did, Claire came home from school and walked right past the kitchen table, which was overfull of knees and elbows and Sam and Dean and Cas and all their plates and coffee cups. Castiel had said her name, like a question, after her, and she answered without looking back.

“If you all insist that I go back to high school, then you might wanna rethink coming for a playdate during finals week,” she said, “Unless, of course, your plan is to get me left back yet _another_ year, so I’m stuck in high school till I die.”

As Claire’s voice grew fainter as she disappeared up the stairs, Jody looked at Cas and gave him an amused shrug, a _she’s-got-a-point_ shrug, an  _I-deal-with-this-every-day-so-don’t-give-me-those-sad-puppy-eyes_ shrug.

“How good are you with chemistry?” she said.

Castiel thought of a planet boiling, of crashing rocks and scorching stars, and saw them all in Jody’s skin and eyes and hair. He thought of oxygen and how he should try to remember to breathe it.

Dean nudged Cas’s knee with his own.

“Hey, Carl Sagan. AP Chem. You can handle that.”

Castiel thought of elements combining to form life; thought of binding the atoms of Dean’s soul back together. He pressed his knee back into Dean’s.

“I’ll try not to let slip any secrets that could unravel the universe,” Cas grumbled, pushing himself out of his chair to follow Claire up to her room.

 ***

Love made itself known in a sharp ache in his gut, with screams and slammed doors. With Claire yelling, “You’re not my fucking mom!” and Jody yelling back, “No, I’m not your mother, and Alex isn’t your sister, and he’s not your father, and neither is he, and neither is he!” as she pointed to Cas, then Dean, then Sam. “But guess what? You’re still a kid, and we’re all older than you, and we’re all doing our damndest to take care of you!”

Claire stood across from all of them, facing them like a cornered dog, and screamed with no words. Castiel knew what she wanted to scream at him was ‘Why?’ and he knew what he would say in reply, but she didn’t ask, and he didn’t know how to say it yet.

 ***

Love crinkled the corners of Castiel’s eyes while Claire got the anti-possession sigil inked onto her skull. Alex was apprenticing at a tattoo shop and she’d already done her own and Jody’s. Claire shaved half her head and had Alex ink it across the side of her skull. It wasn’t a bad idea for placement, she told them, especially once her hair grew back in.

“It’s not like I’m gonna give up wearing bikinis just so whatever kinda monster hangs out at the beach won’t immediately peg me as a hunter,” she said, “This way it’s ever so slightly less conspicuous than Agent Captain and Agent Obvious over there with the boob tattoos.”

When the needle hit her skin, she gritted her teeth and glared at Castiel with the steeled determination of a suspect under cross-examination. He sat backwards on his chair, facing her, matching her for intensity every step of the way. She growled. He growled back. She spat out a stream of profanity, which he came back with, so she had to meet him and raise him. This continued, back and forth, each absolutely refusing to to blush or balk. Claire broke first and fell into giggles, and Cas reminded her that of course he won, he knew more languages than existed on the planet and could swear in every single one of them. Claire called him a smug assfaced dickwad, and Cas said it was too late, she’d lost already. Alex took a break while Claire pulled herself together. While she drank some water, Cas gently pulled the hair that bordered the shaved part of Claire’s head into an intricate braid.

“Where the hell did you learn that?” she asked, prodding it with her fingers.

“Braiding Sam’s hair at Winchester sleepovers,” he said, utterly serious. Claire stared with wavering skepticism over at the couch, where Sam sprawled gracelessly.

“He’s an angel, he can’t lie,” Sam said, not looking away from his book.

Claire redirected her suspicious eyes towards Castiel, who did his best to look honest and humorless.

“I think you’re all nuttier than a pack of shithouse rats,” she told him. He nodded happily in agreement.

 ***

Love came in little beeps when Claire started texting him herself. A band-aid emoticon when she heard they’d had a rough hunt. Questions asking for clarification about something she’d read in the book Dean had given her. A text that just said, “ _Nerd_ ,” with a photo of the chemistry test she aced. A text that he saved, till his phone was vaporized, that read, “ _i am so bored come visit i’ll even take u to hot topical_ ” and then the one after that which read, “ _or hot tropical which is def a gay tiki bar_.”

 ***

Love roared in his ears when she followed them to a hunt in secret. There was only supposed to be one demon, not five, and they definitely weren’t supposed to have got their hands on Claire. Castiel didn’t think. He offered himself to them in exchange.

“I’m an angel. Even your pathetic minds must see that I am worth more to you than her. Let her go safely and I’ll give myself to you.”

The demons, interested and greedy, lowered their knives from Claire’s throat. The glare that Claire fixed on Castiel felt more deadly than all their weapons. As soon as they turned their whole attention on Castiel, Sam and Dean crashed in through the back door and took out two demons each. Claire caught Castiel’s blade and jammed it up through the last demon’s throat. When it was dead, she pulled the bloody weapon out, threw it on the floor, and marched out of the barn without a word.

Castiel found her out in the field, far enough away that the smell from the burning bodies didn’t reach her.

“That’s just what my dad did. Jimmy. He gave himself up for me, too,” she sobbed, her face red. Cas laid his hand carefully over her clenched fists, and spoke with no hesitation or heavy decision. He found that truth came easy sometimes.

“Claire, that is what anyone who loves you and wants to protect you would do.”

She twisted a tall stalk of grass between her fingers, yanking it out of the earth. She said nothing and Castiel wondered if she had heard him.

“You two doin’ ok?” Dean asked, walking up to them slowly. There was ash and blood on his hands.

“Can I get a ride home to Jody’s, Dean?” Claire asked, her voice steady with practiced skill.

“You got it, kiddo,” he said, reaching out his hand to help her up. She headed to their car. Dean held back and sat down on his heels next to Castiel.

“Talk to me.”

Castiel picked up the stem of grass Claire had plucked.

“I think I told her I love her.”

Dean raised his eyebrows and made a soft noise in the back of his throat.

“She didn’t say anything,” Cas continued. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Well, do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Do you love her?”

Cas turned to Dean and shoved him lightly so he topped back on his ass.

“How do you doubt that, Dean?”

“You didn’t say anything the first time I said that to you, either.”

Cas rolled his eyes.

“Dean, that wasn’t because I wasn’t sure about you, it was because I couldn’t imagine how that wasn't the most obvious thing in the world. It was already very clear how much I loved you.”

“Are all angels as buttheaded as you or are you going after some kinda special achievement award?”

Cas glowered at Dean, who sighed.

“Look, so the kid Han Solo’d you. She’s allowed to. If you really love her, let her know that you’ll be there for her when she needs you, even if she doesn’t love you back. That it’s not a _quid pro quo_ situation.”

Cas mulled over this for a moment, and got to his feet.

“Whatever, Obi-Wan,” he mumbled, making his way to the Impala.

“You bet your sweet ass I’m Obi-Wan,” Dean agreed.

 ***           

Love was sure and steady the day Claire brought home Marlena. They’d been dating six months now, since Claire’s 23rd birthday, but Claire had told them all that she didn’t want to overwhelm the poor girl before it was absolutely necessary. Dean and Jody protested, and it was Sam and Cas’s turn to give the _she-has-a-point-you-know_ shrug.

When the day finally came, they came in with hands tightly laced together, and Claire introduced Sam and Jody and Cas and Dean and Charlie all in a long, slow line. Alex was the only one who’d been allowed to meet her before. When she got to Jody and then Cas, Claire said they were “the people that raised me after my parents died.” Dean crossed his arms over his aproned chest.

“Oh, sure, the two of them get all the credit, I never did a _thing_ for ya,” he huffed, and Claire gave Marlena an _I-warned-you-didn’t-I?_ look.

“As you can see, I got a pretty big family,” she admitted.

But Marlena took it all happily in stride. She thought it was cool, she said, catching the beer Alex tossed her, that it had always just been her and her dad and she’d always been a little jealous of big weird families.

She worked in her dad’s motorcycle shop, and she and Dean spent most of dinner eagerly discussing the differences between working on cars and working on bikes. Claire sat across from them, next to Cas, and the two of them watched Marlena and Dean both talking with their mouths full.

“Did you tell him you’ve been riding Marlena’s bike?” Cas asked in a low undertone, under cover of passing the salad bowl across Claire to Sam. Claire kicked him under the table.

“You’re not supposed to know that either. And no. That’s why I’m not telling him to stuff it. If he gets his head around the mechanics of the thing, I figure he can get his head around me being on one. Um. I trust her, and stuff, and we never, ever drive drunk and I always wear a helmet and everything…”

“And I trust you to take care of yourself. And I won’t tell him, as long as you promise to let him know soon, but you have to take me for a ride first.”

Claire rolled her eyes, and looked all of 17 again for a moment.

“For crying out loud. Sure. How’d you know, though?”

“You’ve been having some really terrible helmet hair,” he said calmly. Claire’s hand flew to her hair.

“It’s fine now. You look great,” he said, smiling at her. She plucked at it nervously anyway, until he took her hand down and gave it a quick squeeze.

“You’re beautiful. And we all like Marlena. And we’re all really trying to keep a handle on the weirdness tonight. Well… as much as possible….” he said, getting slightly distracted by Sam tossing cherry tomatoes in the air and catching them in his open mouth. Claire considered all the people at the table for a few moments.

“You know, her dad’s parents won’t talk to either of them ever since she came out. Her dad told them to go fuck themselves, but it’s really hard. It sucks. And I just… when I told you I liked girls, I guess there was a part of me that thought, maybe- I mean, my parents were both very devout people with very devout friends at one point, and I just thought-” she dropped her voice to a whisper, “You being an angel and all- but you just told me I was never ever going to Hell, and especially not for that.”

Cas remembered. He had promised that to her. And quietly, so nobody but Claire could hear, he promised for Marlena, too, and for himself, and for Dean, and for Charlie, and for all of them.

“I know I haven’t always been on the best terms with God, but I know that being a queer doesn’t get you sent to Hell.”

Claire jutted her chin out and nodded, biting the insides of her cheeks. In the space between their chairs and out of sight of the rest of the table, she flashed a quick sign at Castiel. Ring and middle fingers curled in to her palm, thumb, first, and fifth fingers outstretched.

Dean slid his chair back to go get himself another ginger ale. Marlena looked across to Claire and met her eyes. In ten seconds, the two women spoke ten thousand words to each other without making one sound. Cas watched the exchange, the only silent thing at a table full of interrupters and loud burp-ers and one-uppers and Sam and Charlie singing the hobbit drinking song. He couldn’t remember not loving Claire. He couldn’t remember the people at this table not feeling like his family. He couldn’t remember not being loved by each of them.

Dean came back from the fridge, with his soda and a fresh batch of dinner rolls. He plunked the bowl of them on the table, pulled one off the top and came around to Cas’s side of the table. He put it on Cas’s plate and bent down and smacked a kiss on the back of Cas’s neck.

Castiel could probably remember how it felt before all of this, if he tried. But he didn’t have to.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> title from A Midsummer Nights Dream 2.1.121 (not like the guy's gonna claim copyright infringement but whatevs)


End file.
